Teaching English for the first time: general advice

This continues from my first post about teaching English and my post about lesson planning.

Here are some additional, general pieces of advice.

Control your language

One very important skill you will learn 'on the job' is how to grade your own language. You will need to learn how to speak more clearly, to use simpler grammar and vocabulary, and to explain things clearly, with examples.

A lot of students say they can't understand their new foreign teacher. The new teacher, without realising it, is firing off sentences far too quickly, without understanding what students will and won't understand.

This is a problem for many a beginning teacher. We use heaps of idioms and figures of speech in our everyday speaking, without even realising it. It does take some practice, but once you get used to it, you can modulate your language according to each new student. If you see a new student and you don't know their level, you can greet them with very simple English. If they respond in a halting way, you'll know to keep your language very simple. If they speak smoothly and confidently, you can ask your next questions a little more naturally, and give more information yourself. After a few exchanged sentences, you can get a very rough feel for the kind of level of English you can use with that student.

Some tips for speaking to low-level students:
-For low level students, stick to simple questions. If they're struggling a lot, offer example answers. ('Where are you from?' (pause) 'Are you from Yokohama? Tokyo?')
-Say a few words and then pause to give time to process. It takes a while for beginners to mentally translate sentences.
-Smooth the way by using example words that are same in Japanese and English (burger, beer, Japanese city names). Obviously works less well if you don't know any Japanese or which words are similar!

As you get more experience, you'll get more of a feel for things students will and won't know. But bear in mind that most of your students will have learned English through classes and textbooks, so even higher level students may not have very good grasp of idioms.

Keep your instructions clear

Similar to 'controlling your language', when you explain tasks to students, keep it simple and to the point. For lower level students, use gestures and examples to help show your meaning. Also, keep the students with you as you explain the important things.

Example bad explanation: 'Okay, I'd like you guys to form pairs and practise page 50 from the textbook, one of you is gonna ask the other the questions from the top half of the page, and the other is gonna ask the bottom questions; after you finish I want you to solve this puzzle using the answers from the previously answered questions. Okay?'

Example good explanation: 'Okay, please open your book. Look at page 50.' (hold up the book to show the page, wait for students to open)
'Now, you are partners.' (gesturing to each student, putting them in pairs with your gesture) 'You're A, B. A, B.'
'Student A. Please ask your partner these questions.' (gesture to the questions)
'Student B. Please ask your partner these questions.' (gesture)
-(get students to do the exercise)-
'Okay! Now, look at the bottom of the page, here. (gesture) What's the answer to this puzzle?...

Notice the short sentences, the pauses for students to follow you, the gestures, and the delivering key information only at the appropriate moment. Of course, with higher-level classes, you don't want to dumb it down this much, and you can reduce the number of gestures. Still, even with them, you don't want to clutter your most important explanations with lots of unnecessary talking; they'll be straining to work out exactly what you're asking and to get the most important info.

If the exercise is not completely straightforward, you may also want to demonstrate how to do the exercise, by pairing up with a partner and asking them the first question or two from the exercise.

If you are totally new to teaching, I'd recommend actually practising this style of speaking yourself before going in front of a class. You might think 'oh, that sounds so easy', but until you're used to it, you'll likely find yourself putting in lots of 'well, let's see here...'s and 'what I'm gonna ask you to do's and 'oh and if you wouldn't mind...'s. Similarly, you could practise how you would explain the difference between two words, or the meaning of certain vocab words, in a really simple and clear way.

Check students' understanding

After you have explained something, unless the meaning could not possibly be misunderstood, check the students understand it!

For example, if you've just explained the difference between 'his' and 'him', write up a few short example sentences on the board, with gaps ('This is ___ book', 'I talked to ___ yesterday', etc). Get students to try to supply the missing words.

Or if you have just given students an exercise to do, you can check their understanding. 'So, what are you going to write?' 'Are you going to write, or just speak?'

Speaking together

Get students to work in pairs or small groups. Give them as much speaking time as possible. Unless you have a small class, try to limit activities where you ask every member of the class a question, or get every person to report back on what they talked about. Students in pairs get to talk more, and practise more.

If you are doing pairwork, and you have an odd number of students, you must decide whether to make a group of three, or to partner one of the students yourself. If you do the former, try to arrange it so that different people make a group of 3 in each activity. (Obviously, students in a group of 3 get less individual time to talk/practise.) If you do the latter, again, try to partner yourself with different students for different activities, and take pauses to check on the progress of other students.

Drilling

Don't be shy about drilling the students. It might seem boring to you, to have them repeat the same sentences several times. But if you've ever learned a language, you'll know that sometimes you just need to get your mouth used to saying the words! 

Correcting students

When students are doing freer conversation, try not to interject and correct their every utterance. In my experience, Japanese students usually *do* want to be corrected if they are making errors, but choose your battles, so as not to discourage them with excessive corrections. If they can't express themselves or really foul up some language, correct them, but if they just leave out a 'the' or 'a', let it slide (unless 'the' and 'a' is the point of the lesson).

When you correct students, here are some handy ideas:

Get them to 'see' the error for themselves. For example, repeat back their error, emphasising the wrong word. ('He HAVE a car?') Or ask a question about it. ('You HAVE WORKED in Osaka last year? Do you work there now? No? Okay, how can we say this?')

Get them to repeat the correct sentence.

After the exercise has finished, put a few sentences you overheard on the board. Get students to look at them themselves and work out which are correct and incorrect.

If someone is making a common error, or several people make the same error, write it up on the board and get students to correct it and think about what the correct English is.

In my experience, many Japanese students have struggled with English learning precisely because they are not confident about just practising whatever language they think of, taking risks, making mistakes. In school, a lot of them practised endless reading and grammar, without much conversation practice. This means that what a lot of students most need is the chance to speak a lot and improve their fluency. Of course they should be helped to speak *correctly*, but be careful you don't correct them SO much that they can't get any flow going.

Nobody is speaking!

It depends on your class. Some classes will be a buzz of confident energy, where conversation flows freely. In other classes, getting any response from anybody will be like pulling teeth. What do you do in this situation?

I can tell you there is no easy answer, but some tips:
-get students speaking in pairs simultaneously; if several people are talking at the same time, nobody feels self-conscious about their voice being heard by the whole class.
-limit the number of questions you ask the class as a whole. Or, ask the questions, but provide the answer within a few seconds.*
-if their silence stems from lack of creativity or ideas, put up some ideas on the board.
-teach them how to ask a variety of questions. Teach them how to answer, and then add extra information. (Eg, if someone asks 'do you like video games?', don't just say 'yes'. You would go on to talk about what games you like, how often you play, etc.)

-make sure their silence is not caused by total lack of comprehension of the material. If students are in a class that is far too advanced for them (unfortunately, a common occurrence, at least in my experience), there may not be much you can do, except try to schedule bits of respite in the lesson where students can freely use language they *do* know confidently to talk about familiar topics.

*(This is not always recommended; sometimes students genuinely need a long time to understand the question and formulate an answer. You want to give these students the time to think it through. But in other cases, students just don't want to speak out in front of a whole class, especially when they are not confident about their answer. If you have such a class, don't spend half an hour fruitlessly waiting for answers to questions.)

Sometimes you do everything you can and they still don't talk much (in my experience, the worst situation is where you have a class of 3 shy people, because you can't just put them in pairs and get them to ignore their other classmates).

Teaching English for the first time: planning a lesson

(See my earlier blog post on teaching English for the first time in Japan. It has some more general tips.)

So... you're a brand-new teacher. You're given a textbook with a grammar point for the day, and you have no teaching experience, and you're going to teach a 50-minute conversation class.

Here's an idea for how you could teach a lesson. For the sake of a concrete example, let's imagine we are teaching 'present continuous' (I am going, he is eating).

1. Warm-up: give students a few minutes to chat - maybe give them a random conversation topic - or some kind of vocabulary game.

[In this case, I might get them to talk about hobbies or give them a vocab game to think up different verbs. It will be useful for the lesson to come.]

2. Introduce the language of the class: this could take the form of setting up a situation and getting students to comment on it (see this previous post), reading a small article, looking at a dialogue, etc.

[In the case of present continuous, I'd try doing a simple activity, like miming reading. I'd ask students, 'what am I doing?' and get them to answer me. If they can't give me a correct sentence, I'd provide it ('you are reading') and get them to repeat it.

Then I'd do another gesture, like eating, and get them all to say what I'm doing. Repeat a couple more times. I'd write the sentence on the board ('you are __ing').

Get them to practise the exercise with each other (eg, one person acts a gesture, the other guesses).

I'd put up words like 'I' and 'he' and ask them to give me the sentence (I AM _ing, he IS _ing'), get them to repeat, write it on the board. If the class is not having too much trouble with the material thus presented, also cover questions (at least, 'what are you doing?', 'what is he doing?' etc)

Drill key sentences (get students to repeat them, correct their intonation etc).]

3. Get more exposure to the language point using material from the textbook.

[For example, try a listening activity, or practise reading a dialogue together.]

4. Practise the language point a bit more actively, but still in a controlled way. For example, use a questionnaire or survey.

[I might put students in pairs to do a worksheet with pictures of people doing different things. Students ask each other what the people on their sheet are doing.]

5. Practise the language in freer conversation. Set up a situation where students can have a more natural conversation, or roleplay practise.

[I might have students pretend to call each other on the phone, and ask each other what they (and their family) are doing... it might be nice to have students practise a varient of what they did in the listening activity or dialogue. Another thing I like to do for present continuous is, if possible, take the students into a public area and get them to, in pairs and while speaking, make a list of things they see people doing.]

This is not a perfect lesson, nor is it one-size-fits-all. A lot of Japanese English conversation schools use a lesson structure a little like this. It's a bit formulaic, and you'll need to inject some personality into it to make it interesting, but it can work quite well. If you have absolutely no idea where to start, you could use this 'formula' as a basis for planning your own lesson. Then after the lesson, think about what went well and what didn't. If you taught it again, what would you change?

Sometimes, instead of grammar, you'll be teaching 'functional language' - for example, general English for 'ordering at a restaurant' or 'disagreeing with someone'. In this case, you can follow the same steps, but one nice idea - so long as you haven't got real beginners - is getting students to practise roleplaying at the start of the lesson - eg, 'here are your menus, try ordering from them' - so you can see what they do and don't know. Then you can get some ideas from them for language, and put them on the board, as well as teaching them new expressions and ideas. This is also nice for helping students feel like they learned something, and could do something new at the end of the lesson that they couldn't do at the beginning.

Lesson order

Whatever you decide to do, if you are a new teacher, I would recommend a 'safe' general lesson order of:
1. introducing language point
2. drilling (students repeat examples of the language)
3. controlled practice
4. free practice

'Controlled' practice refers to speaking practice where you are kind of 'forced' to use the language point in a fairly structured way. For example, a questionnaire or textbook exercise where students must ask and answer questions, using the language point. 'Free' practice' is where students talk, or do a roleplay or conversation, where they can use the language point where appropriate.

The difference here is that in controlled practice, students don't need to think very creatively, or come up with their own ideas - they are focusing on making the sentences correctly and being accurate. Then in the freer practice, improving fluency, using the language appropriately in conversation, and thinking of your own ideas is important.

It's important, though, to give students a good amount of time to use the language, not just study how to make sentences.

Thinking about the language

Another thing I would recommend is, if you are a new teacher, take a few minutes to think about the language point you're going to teach. This doesn't come easily at first, but with time...

If you are at a Japanese-style English conversation school, you've likely got a textbook with clearly defined units and language points, which students study at home before coming to class; the teacher is not expected to spend much time 'teaching' grammar or language. Still, questions may come up and it's good to know what you will and won't cover. Also, if you give each language point some consideration, you will build up your understanding of English and how different pieces of language work, which will really enrich your teaching.

As an example, with present continuous, think about:

-How is it formed? (I am _ing, he/she/it IS __ing, you/they/we ARE _ing)

-What are some uses of this language? Are we going to cover all of them in class? (For example, 'I am eating dinner now, please call me later' is talking about an action happening right now. 'I am working hard these days' is talking about a recent activity, but you are not necessarily doing it at this moment. 'I am going out tonight' is a future activity.)

Unless you have a higher level class, or you are doing a review of something the students should already know, I'd recommend focusing on one main use per class. Then you can design activities practising that use a lot, so students can really understand it and use it.

-Are there any pitfalls with this language? (Yes; we generally don't use present continuous for 'state' verbs, that is, verbs that show a state rather than an activity. Examples are be, know, love. We don't usually say 'I am knowing him' or 'he is being a doctor'. There are exceptions, but better to cover in a more advanced class.)

I have one more post on the theme of teaching English: see my next post.

Teaching English for the first time (part 1)

As I mentioned in my recent post about eikaiwa, a lot of teachers come to teach English for the first time, without previous teaching experience. Generally the company provides training, but what if you need to teach outside of your school's methodology? What if you have to design your own lesson for the first time? What if you get a new job using a different teaching style, but you don't get training in it?

I'll give some tips for people who find themselves having to teach for the first time.

I have moved most of this post into my new blog, ESL Ideas - so click here for my other ideas.

It's not just grammar

If you teach at an eikaiwa, generally the lessons have a particular grammar or functional language goal. However, English lessons need not be only about these things. What about teaching skills? That is, reading, writing, speaking, listening.

For example, your students can probably read English better than they can speak it. But a lot of students read slowly, word-by-word. Can they skim-read a page to find a piece of information they need? Can they take a quick look at an article and get the gist of it without having to reach for the dictionary every second word?

Eikaiwa usually have a lot of focus on speaking practice, but how about some practice in simply communicating your meaning effectively? Where students are allowed to make mistakes without being corrected every time, just for fluency's sake?

I have written more on teaching English for the first time... see the next post for lesson planning ideas.

Eikaiwa

Japanese English schools, particularly 'eikaiwa' (English conversation schools) hire a lot of new teachers, teachers with no experience. The companies often recruit from overseas, then give a period of training in Japan, after which the new teachers are unleashed on the paying public.

Now, whether this training is adequate depends on the company and the requirements of the job. Many eikaiwa have developed specific ways of teaching a class, so once you've learned their 'method', it's fairly plug-and-play. As such, a lot of eikaiwa teachers don't have - or need - a proper background and training in teaching methodology.

If you have a university degree, and are a native English speaker, it's usually not too difficult to find an ESL teaching job in Japan. The virtue of some of the major corporations is they can look after you and ease your entry into the country, helping you sort out things like visas, providing accommodation, etc.

Is eikaiwa teaching for you? Some people say the pay is low, etc, but if you are not a qualified teacher, what would you expect? I think it's a good way to get into the country. However, I think it would be a shame to do this work only for the sake of getting into Japan. You will have lots of students paying good money to learn from you; if you don't enjoy your job and don't care about doing well, it's a bit unfair on them.

Eikaiwa teaching can be repetitive compared to other teaching jobs, but it can be a good opportunity to meet people, talk to students, and learn about Japanese life and culture.

Is an eikaiwa a good place to work? Well, it depends on the person and the place. Here's my advice.

Do your research. If you are considering a particular company, see what other people on the Internet are saying about it. (Be aware, of course, that every company will have detractors, and it's the people who had bad experiences who tend to speak up the loudest.)

Also, different companies have different conditions, different lengths of holidays, different benefits. Some companies have a policy that you can't socialise with students. Some companies don't allow you to find your own accommodation, but make you pay for theirs. So look into this.

Be aware that every situation can be different. I have known people who worked for various companies; some of them had a wonderful time, while others had horror stories. Even within the same company, it's possible for one school to be wonderful and another terrible. The biggest problem I heard of was clashes with management, management making ridiculous demands, personality conflict with other staff members, etc.

A lot of eikaiwa do have problems, but like working in any office environment, a lot will depend on the individual staff you work with, and your own personality. Generally, if you are flexible and have a positive attitude, you are more likely to get along with people. See the next point.

To have the best chance of happiness at an eikaiwa, it's important to be a team player. You may find yourself being requested to do some things which are not strictly in your contract. For example, your contract says you finish at 8, but your manager wants you to talk to a student for a few minutes after class. Or your school is organising a farewell party for someone and would like you to come.

Of course, you do not technically have to do something that is not in your contract, and you shouldn't let yourself get walked all over. But if you refuse in an obnoxious way, or make an issue of it, or refuse every request, it'll likely create bad feeling. I've heard of many such stories, where Japanese staff are upset with foreign teachers who refuse to help with anything apart from their core classes. Often, the staff are just passing on requests coming from senior management.

In my experience, the Japanese staff at eikaiwa, when compared with foreign teachers, usually work longer hours for less pay. If foreign teachers refuse to help with anything, the Japanese staff have to do extra to compensate.

Of course, sometimes it is a case of unreasonable management making unreasonable requests. Again, every situation is different.

You should be aware of the corporate nature of these schools. Education may be important, but ultimately, the businesses exist to make money. As a teacher at this school, you may be asked to participate in advertising campaigns, get students to sign up for things, etc. You may encounter frustrations with Japanese-style management techniques and policies.

A lot of eikaiwa require you to teach both adults and children. Some people enjoy teaching children, but a lot of people don't. The number of kids classes can vary greatly from school to school; some foreign teachers find they have more children's classes than adult's. You should be aware of this.

Your attendance is required. With most eikaiwa, you don't have a lot of holidays or sick leave, and you are unlikely to be working flexible hours. Again, this can depend a lot on your particular school's staff. Some will let you take a week off to go travelling; others will baulk at allowing you a single day. Some will let you take a holiday on your least busy day but never on a weekend. Etc.

Along with these potential problems, there are potential good things - meeting people, working with a team of teachers and staff, help if you are new to the country, a relatively un-stressful job (depends on the school and position), pre-established materials and lesson plans (again, depends on the school), parties, teaching experience, etc.